for the next decade. I pesonally think, only CPS (cost per sale) models will survive. If you are an optimist about CPM and CPC models please share your reasons why are you optimistic about these models.

Are you only referring to ecommerce sites (i'm assuming) because
what other model would work for advertisers advertising big budget movies or tv shows, or events in local areas when they don't sell direct via the net?

or even... products themselves where so much of their value is derived from their brand which comes through cpm advertising (via tv/magazines/net)

1. Some products/services are very difficult to directly sell over the Net, and some are impossible.

That is why there is brand-oriented advertising. "Drink Coke" is a general message, that the company wants ingrained in your mind, to be activated the next time you are in a real-life supermarket. BMW wants to instill the emotional idea of how exciting their cars are, even if you aren't in the market for one just yet (i.e. you aspire to have one some day.) A new movie will appear in cinemas soon, so hype it to encourage real-life ticket sales (CPA campaigns for the home video will wait until later.) And so forth.

Of course, other products, like credit cards, and highly specific tangible products (e.g. a particular book/video), are much more suited to paying per signup/purchase.

2. There is nothing about CPM or CPC that is fundamentally unsustainable, for the smart (and getting smarter) advertisers. They are always looking at the bottom line. If it is a product/service that can be sold online, or if it is a lead-collection type goal (e.g. price quotes on insurance), they calculate the $-value of the results to the CPM/CPC that they pay, vs. the conversion rate. In a way, those campaigns are, deep down, Cost-Per-Action, even if it is hidden.

3. Lots of publishers want to avoid the risk and effort of CPA/Affiliate campaigns, so it is much easier to offer them CPM/CPC. Large properties like Yahoo, CNN, etc, supposedly will accept CPA campaigns, but only as a last resort, after selling as much CPM impressions as possible for that time period.

4. As long as there is traditional print and broadcast advertising, there will be CPM on the minds of buyers/advertisers. I have heard that some television infomercials are actually CPA ("Call to order now!" with a separate 800 phone number for each channel that runs the program.) But, really, CPM based upon estimated eyeballs is so well established that it will be a very long time before it disappears, if ever. And the same folks who buy ad space in the real world, also buy space online.

I run every ad type that I can, within the limits of my traffic, ethics, etc. That includes both creative and payment-structure diversity. And I expect that to continue for the forseeable future.

CPM usually mean banner advertising, and i think all banner advertisements should turn into CPC as well. They are more attractive than text links on searchs. I think search engines should being banner advertising as well for relevant keyword searches, along with sponsored links

I am not able to predict the future no more than anyone else can, so I can only take a guess.

I would expect CPC to survive because of the growing popularity and success. At the same time I can't help but remember that CPC was doing rather nice several years ago but was killed due to the serious fraud problem. There is still fraud today with CPC, but technology is better now and it doesn't appear to be creating the horrible problems that it did a few years ago. As long as fraud doesn't win again, CPC should survive.

Something CPM has going for it is the fact that some of the very gigantic sites use it. These are sites with millions upon millions of visitors per month. So I would expect it to survive because of them.

In this thread we have been talking about the survival of CPA/CPS, CPM and CPC. But who knows what the future holds? There will probably be some new models at some point in the future which aren't around now and things we couldn't possibly dream of. Whatever those might be, it is possible they might completely change everything and eliminate all of these models. Only time will tell.

As long as the advertiser or middle man can validate a value on the ad, they will pay CPM, so it certainly is not going away. Even Fastclick has said that they will take a CPA campaign from an advertiser, and pay the publisher a CPM or CPC for it. Now, i'm sure that bigger campaigns where they can guestimate how much they'll make on a campaign.

Also, don't forget that there is new actions coming out. Like Pay-Per-Call that google is trying out now. Who knows what will come in the future.. pay per video chat? pay per halo deck immersion?